Be sure to read my follow-up on the Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg advocating that we criminalize homosexuality at NewsReal. In it, I discuss how his comments and FRC’s apparent desire to sweep it under the rug can only hurt the cause of true marriage.
stupidity
An Open Letter to the Family Research Council
To Whom It May Concern,
I have always been an admirer of the Family Research Council’s work in support of the right to life, true marriage, religious liberty, and other traditional American values. For years, I have also worked towards those goals in my community and on my weblog. I fought fiercely for Wisconsin’s Marriage Protection Amendment in 2006. Like most conservatives, I have often been slandered as a bigot because I oppose same-sex marriage, civil unions, and gay adoption.
I say this so that, when I express how shocked, offended and betrayed I felt upon seeing the conduct of one of your spokesmen recently, you understand my full meaning.
FRC Senior Fellow for Policy Studies Peter Sprigg recently appeared on MSNBC to discuss the issue of gay soldiers serving openly in the US military with Chris Matthews. The segment ended with the following exchange:
MATTHEWS: Do you think we should outlaw gay behavior?
SPRIGG: Well, I – I think certainly it’s defensible.
MATTHEWS: I’m just asking you, should we outlaw gay behavior?
SPRIGG: I think the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which overturned the sodomy laws in this country, was wrongly decided. I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior.
MATTHEWS: So we should outlaw gay behavior.
SPRIGG: Uh, yes.
When I saw the headlines announcing, “Family Research Council Spokesman Advocates Criminalizing Homosexuality,” I was certain they had to be lies, more out-of-context distortions of honorable conservative beliefs. But for once, the Left appears to be correct.
Both as a matter of moral principle and of political common sense, Mr. Sprigg’s comments are indefensible. Our Founding Fathers clearly wanted American to be guided by a firm sense of morality, and believed that Judeo-Christian religious values were essential to the continued survival of a republic. But they also established the principle of limited government, authorized only to do a certain number of things and dedicated to preserving individual liberty.
The question of whether society should formally endorse homosexual behavior via civil marriage is fundamentally different from the question of whether or not homosexuals are human beings equally entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or whether or not it is just for any level of government to criminalize sexual activity between consenting adults. Indeed, one can even recognize that Lawrence was an instance of judicial overreach without supporting the merits of the statute in dispute.
As a Christian, an American, and a conservative, I am appalled that it would ever cross any of my leaders’ minds to advocate such an un-American policy as criminalizing gay behavior. Not only would such beliefs constitute genuine persecution of American citizens, but they would set the stage for a dangerous expansion of governmental power over individual liberty.
Regarding political common sense, it is baffling to me that, given the Left’s long-standing history of demonizing believers in traditional values, a prominent, experienced conservative spokesman such as Mr. Sprigg would not instantly recognize Matthews’ question as a trap and know enough not to take the bait. Liberals and gay activists have wasted no time in seizing upon his comments not just to condemn Peter Sprigg, but to condemn all of us. It is bad enough that defenders of true marriage routinely have to deal with false charges of bigotry and extremism; the last thing any of us needs is a true one.
Naturally, I would appreciate an explanation from Mr. Sprigg as to just what he meant, if he misspoke, but his comments seem clear enough that I have a hard time imagining that he did not understand the question, or that he meant something other than what he said. Mr. Sprigg’s reckless and un-conservative remarks have harmed the battle for true marriage, and they threaten to tarnish all of the good work the Family Research Council has done in the past, and will continue to do in the future. It pains me to say it, but I see only one way for the FRC to preserve—and, indeed, to deserve—its credibility: Peter Sprigg should be relieved of his duties with the organization, effective immediately. Thank you for your time.
Calvin Freiburger
(Update: cross-posted at NewsReal.)
Michael Medved: What Does “Get Back to the Constitution” Mean?
Michael Medved is, bar none, one of the most intelligent, knowledgeable, and eloquent guys in all of talk radio—which is why it’s such a shame that he devotes so much of his skill to deflecting substantive criticism away from the Republican Party. Townhall’s Greg Hengler highlights the following exchange between Medved and a caller (h/t to Hot Air):
Here is a great exchange between a caller to Michael Medved’s radio show who’s obviously influenced by Glenn Beck’s daily mantras like “There is no difference between the two parties — they’re both ‘progressive’,” etc. Without naming Beck’s name, Medved goes off on this caller (read: Glenn Beck). Take a listen:
I’ll be the first to agree that Beck substantially overstates the similarities between Republicans and Democrats (in fact, I’ll go even further and say that Beck’s analysis often comes across as impulsive and poorly thought out), and this particular caller does not make his case well at all. But while Beck overstates the problem, that doesn’t exonerate Medved from understating it. He challenges the caller to provide a single example of an issue on which John McCain and Barack Obama were on the same page.
I’ll take that challenge, Michael: not only is McCain’s role in campaign finance reform the stuff of legend, but it could even be argued that he’s even more to the left here than Obama is.
I do believe that satisfies the original challenge, but let’s throw in a second, for good measure: immigration. McCain is also infamous for his left-wing zealotry in favor of amnesty, and though he may have backpedaled ever so slightly in 2008 for political expediency, he incredibly ran an ad running to Obama’s left here as well, accusing Obama of playing a role in killing 2007’s amnesty bill.
Besides, being somewhat better than the alternative is still not sufficient to rise to the level of good. Take abortion, for example—when your opponent gets caught red-handed on the wrong side of starving newborns to death in broom closets, it doesn’t take much effort to look good by comparison.
On almost every conceivable issue, John McCain’s conservative credentials have serious flaws, not the least of which was the mainstream conservative Club for Growth’s judgment that his “overall record is tainted by a marked antipathy towards the free market and individual freedom.”
I voted for McCain. I understand that half a loaf is better than no loaf. I don’t demand 100% ideological purity from every single politician. But the GOP’s lack of commitment to conservatism is bigger than a handful of isolated blemishes; it’s an identity crisis that caused and enabled many of the Bush presidency’s failings and led to the election of Barack Obama. Will Medved admit that this is a real, legitimate problem? How does he propose that we address it? (And no, throwaway admissions that “Republicans aren’t perfect” don’t count.)
As to the third party question: it’s true that anyone who expects a third party candidate to actually win the White House is delusional, and I’m not aware of any existing third parties that deserve to be taken seriously. But while many disgruntled conservatives may have mixed-up views of them, a decent third party might be useful in a different way: not as a replacement for the GOP, but as the catalyst for real GOP reform. As long as Republicans keep limping along on life support, the Beltway types will take their every victory as an affirmation that they’re doing enough right that they’re justified in maintaining the status quo. It’s doubtful that anything less than a real threat to Republican viability would be enough to force any real self-reflection.
What’s most shameful is Medved’s angry, impatient reaction to the idea that Republicans need to “get back to the Constitution”:
What does that mean? Stop with the slogans! Talk to me about reality! Americans are out of jobs, there’s 10% unemployment in this country. We are being spent into oblivion […] so why are you talking about pie-in-the-sky stupidity, fantasy land, kindergarten, childish idiot stuff? I mean, and you are!
Regardless of Brian’s inability to articulate his message, the fact remains there is no way Medved does not know exactly what “get back to the Constitution” means. He’s simply too smart, too informed, and too active a conservative intellectual not to. Take the courts—did the GOP put up much of a fight against Sonia Sotomayor? Federal influence in education, healthcare, and environmental & workplace regulations have obvious constitutional problems. In many cases, the GOP has been on the wrong side of these questions, and even when they haven’t, often they fail to make an issue of the constitutional aspect (though there are a few bright spots). Is restoring a proper understanding of & reverence for the Constitution no longer a major priority of conservatism, in Medved’s view?
This exchange was indeed educative, but not for the reason Hengler thinks. It demonstrates that, while talk radio personalities like Michael Medved are a tremendous asset in some ways, in others they’re part of the problem.
Rave Reviews 2!
It’s back, by popular demand! (And by “popular demand,” I mean “I felt like it.”)
“I know young Mr. Freiburger considers himself to ba a Christian; I wonder: what part of ‘thou shalt not bear false witness’ doesn’t he understand?” – Closet-Commie
“… you are an angry man!” – naturboy
“Freiberger is a perfect example of what’s wrong with this country and why it is becoming ungovernable.” – lisleil
“I do, however, find it disturbing when someone of that age simply repeats the tripe dished up on right wing radio.” – radioguy2
“This rant is nothing more than bitching by the right over Obama being elected!!” – geekyandwhatnot
“The same old ‘cut and paste’ rhetorical blather isn’t worth the time and effort necessary to conduct a ‘direct discussion’. However, it’s important to me that guys like Calvin know that I’m taking the time to read the work of others being passed off as his own.” – Marvin49
“…speculative drivel and unfounded conjecture…” – Justinfdl
“Just keep barking at your fellow citizens like a good little puppy and completely ignore the oligarchs screwing us all over.” – M_miller_t
“Wow, bigoted much?” – Michelle
“I need to ask if Calvin’s relatives own the Reporter? Is there any other reason they would continue to print this gibberish?” – FDL54935
“Bat s*** crazy seems to be an understatement when describing you…would you even recognize sanity, conscience, or even integrity if you saw it? I doubt it.” – Chris Liebenthal
“Using fallacies for the purpose of making a point just makes you pathetic at what you do.” – Oscar M
“You people See a Black face and automatically assume, Democrat!!!!!” – Houston
“I do not have much respect for your standards of evidence or with what has and has not been proved to you.” – Alonzo Fyfe
“Mr. Freiburg along with much of the right simply do not believe in equality and justice for all.” – kalebgage
“I’m wondering if he honestly doesn’t see himself implementing the very tactics that he criticizes on the political left. I also wonder why he won’t concede a single point.” – Gerald
“…the Neo-Cons like this blogger and their platform has been proven a complete failure…” – Gmartine
“Partisan sniping without any actual evidence.” – Anonymous
“You are losing. You are wrong and your are ‘Nuts.’” – Derrick Gaskin
“Oh!! It’s so much fun laughing at you pious little war warmongers. Your little shrieks are becoming more and more ridiculous as each day passes.” – Sex Panther
“Hello, Dr. Freiburger. Your astute knowledge of Psychology must be astounding to deduce and diagnose such a mental ailment from merely reading one comment in a blog post. Unless, that is, you’re practicing without a license, are you? I can understand it’s mush easier to label people then correct their error with reason, logic, and/or facts.” – Professor MacNamarra
“Back to the television my sheepish friend, I hear that they’ve found some new meadows for you to graze upon.” – Dan N
“Having read this entire thread, the concept that you think you are not only intelligent but funny as well is the most entertaining post for me by far.” – Devon
“Your opinions in this thread are simply not supported by anything other than your own myopic world view. How dare you attribute some simplistic slipshod approach to me. You do not know me…You basically just stuck your tongue out at me and said ‘Now you really done it! You’re stupid for thinking that’. Tell us why!” – Todd Owens
“You are a sad person and we all thank you for showing your true character…oops, lack of character. Now go back to sleep….sleep…sleep my friend. Just do as you are told and believe as we tell you to believe and go back to sleep.” – Marvin K Johnson
“…if you’re going to write a slanderous piece on Dr. Paul, you better watch out because it’s going to get ugly and his supporters won’t back down.” – Mike
“Calvin Freiburger does exactly what he purports to disdain, and that is too stick dogmatically to his simplistic beliefs about how the world works, then congratulates himself for being so objective.” – Thinkingman
Calvin Freiburger Online: Shouldn’t you be reading?
How Not to Raise Your Kids
Last week, I wrote a post for NewsReal blasting Conor Friedersdorf for his contention that teen sexting is no big deal. In his vapid response to his critics, somebody left a comment that perfectly illustrates just how demented the liberal mind is:
Would Calvin Freiburger prefer that a 14 year old girl take off her top IN PERSON to explore her burgeoning sexuality and hormones? If I were a sane parent I’d be grateful that the only sex my kid* were having was virtual.
10 years ago the problem was “hook-ups” where your teen was expected to engage in oral sex on a first date to keep up with her peers. Obviously, that still happens, but if we get lucky, maybe sexting will replace it.
This guy comes from the starting point that his kids are inevitably going to have sex, and there’s nothing he as a parent can do about it. Far be it from me to put any effort into raising children! Discipline? Discussion? Values? What are these words of which you speak?
Whether it’s laziness, incompetence, or a simple lack of morals, if this is your starting point, then you’re abdicating your basic responsibilities as a parent, and you are a failure.
A Case Study in Republican Rhetorical Incompetence
Robert Stacy McCain has excerpts from a speech by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), in which he goes completely nuclear on opponents of ObamaCare. In Whitehouse’s alternate dimension, it seems Republicans have filled the debate with lies and distortions all aimed at frightening the American people, all because “The ‘birthers,’ the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militias and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Obama should exist.”
Of course, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that nationalizing healthcare is a really bad idea with an abysmal track record. Heaven knows the right-wing “lies” couldn’t possibly be true, and that it couldn’t possibly be the Left who’s been lying. No, no, better to attribute the whole thing to extremists and be done with it.
Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) has responded to Whitehouse’s un-medicated tirade with an explanation as to why people oppose ObamaCare in good faith, along with the following criticisms of his colleague’s outburst:
I don’t know whether it’s frustration or maybe just the lens through which partisans view things and their opponents, unfortunately, that spawned the remarks earlier today from one of our Democratic colleagues…I wonder if my colleagues really believe that our position is animated by hatred. Why else would we oppose this legislation?
If why Democrats routinely engage in hate-mongering still mystifies you, then maybe you shouldn’t be entrusted with a seat in the US Senate. It’s not that complicated: THEY DON’T CARE WHAT THE TRUTH IS. To the Left, it’s all political—tell any lie, ignore any evidence, shoot any messenger, all in the name of doing maximum damage to their opponents and intimidating as many as possible into silence. Punks like Whitehouse keep doing it because they know there’s no price to be paid. At most, they’ll get a timid, bumbling response like Kyl’s.
The GOP’s problems are many, but one of the biggest is that there are virtually no Ann Coulter types—people willing to talk frankly about the severe consequences of liberalism and honestly about the motives and character of their opponents—in Congress. Every time some liar pipes up about racist Republicans or conservatives hating poor people, he should be met with such a firestorm of condemnation that the very thought of trying it again should make him wet himself in terror. The Democrats understand that contemporary American politics is a knife fight—it’s time for Republicans to stop bringing pillows.
A Case of Mistaken, Rabid Identity (Updated for Hypocrisy!)
Milwaukee blogger Chris Liebenthal (Boots & Sabers regulars may know him as Capper) has a cookie-cutter post about the tightrope future Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker will supposedly have to walk between the crooked & incompetent GOP establishment on the one hand, and the tea-party lunatics on the other. Blah blah blah…
Amusingly, the centerpiece of the post is a comment from somebody named “Calvin” on this post from Charlie Sykes’ blog. Out of the State of Wisconsin’s five-and-a-half-million people, there’s apparently only one right-winger by that name, so Capper pegs me as the commenter. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you’ve got the wrong man.
I do, however, appreciate being recognized as a “rabid right winger.” Remember, kids: Calvin Freiburger is precisely the kind of ignorant, intolerant, right-wing extremist scum your Homeland Security Secretary warned you about!
Calvin Freiburger Online: shouldn’t you be reading?
UPDATE: Understandably embarrassed at his blunder, Capper is digging in his heels in the comments, insisting that some nonexistent inconsistency between my words here and there somehow proves Sykes-Calvin and I are one and the same. Apparently his brilliant mind cannot grasp the concept that, in the comment he imagines to be a smoking gun, I was responding to a specific claim by Anonymous (who, now that I mention it, is probably the same “Anonymous” from that other article I was reading last week!). With such a tenuous grasp on reality and utter disregard for truth, no wonder the guy’s a liberal.
In all honesty, though, I should have known better than to waste my time wading into Capper’s cesspool – after all, a central tenet of the liberal playbook is to make a scandal out of the very act of defending one’s self from a vapid liberal attack. Live and learn, I guess.
In honor of what feels like the ten-thousandth time one of these bozos has given blogging a bad name, it seems like a great opportunity to revisit this Steven Crowder classic:
UPDATE 2: So it turns out that yesterday, Cappy whined about falling victim to the very same thing he did to me. You can’t make this stuff up…
UPDATE 3 (12/22/09): The Capster’s paranoia has been going on for even longer than I thought. If it weren’t so stupid, I’d be flattered.
Goliath Has Nothing to Fear from These Davids
David Frum is promoting David Brooks’ latest column, in which Brooks says:
Just months after the election and the humiliation, everyone is again convinced that Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and the rest possess real power. And the saddest thing is that even Republican politicians come to believe it. They mistake media for reality. They pre-emptively surrender to armies that don’t exist.
They pay more attention to Rush’s imaginary millions than to the real voters down the street. The Republican Party is unpopular because it’s more interested in pleasing Rush’s ghosts than actual people. The party is leaderless right now because nobody has the guts to step outside the rigid parameters enforced by the radio jocks and create a new party identity. The party is losing because it has adopted a radio entertainer’s niche-building strategy, while abandoning the politician’s coalition-building strategy.
The rise of Beck, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. But it’s not because the talk jocks have real power. It’s because they have illusory power, because Republicans hear the media mythology and fall for it every time.
This is delusional on several fronts. Brooks’ claim that the GOP is at the mercy of talk radio is totally undercut by his own column’s earlier observation about John McCain’s primary success, despite the longstanding bad blood between McCain and the pundits. But that’s not to say his other claim, that the talkers have no sway with the actual voters, is much better — just ask Harriet Miers, the United Arab Emirates, or the Republicans who wanted to ram amnesty through Congress (all issues talk radio sounded the alarm on) how far they got.
It’s interesting that Brooks attributes the GOP’s decline to the rise of Glenn Beck (who didn’t really hit it big until after Obama’s victory), Sean Hannity (who was a superstar well before any discernible GOP decline, and was doing his usual routine during Republicans’ Congressional gains in 2002 and both of George W. Bush’s victories in 2000 & 2004), and Bill O’Reilly (an independent with hawkish defense and law-&-order sentiments, but also a global-warming believer who spends half his time demonizing oil companies and treating any politician who might give him an interview with kid gloves), and not to what these supposedly-kowtowing Republicans actually did:
Bush and the Republicans spent massively, especially in Bush’s first term. We opposed that, mightily. The president’s most cherished initiative, probably, was the Faith-Based Initiative. We opposed that. Then there was his education policy: No Child Left Behind. We opposed that (mainly on grounds that it wrongly expanded the federal role). He had his new federal entitlement: a prescription-drug benefit. We of course opposed that. He imposed steel tariffs—for a season—which we opposed. He signed the McCain-Feingold law on campaign finance—which we opposed. He established a new cabinet department, the Department of Homeland Security. We opposed that. He defended race preferences in the University of Michigan Law School case; we were staunchly on the other side. He of course proposed a sweeping new immigration law, which included what amounted to amnesty. We were four-square against that.
I am talking about some things that were very dear to Bush’s heart, and central to his efforts—and self-image, as a leader. NR, the conservative arbiter, opposed those things. The Republican party, by and large, supported them—with one glaring exception: the immigration push.
He might also do well to consider that McCain’s failed presidential bid was hardly in the mold of a Limbaugh broadcast, or, if he’s really feeling intellectually curious, he could ask himself what effect a primary field divided among multiple candidates with partial claims to certain aspects of conservatism (Romney on economics, Huckabee on social issues, Giuliani on terrorism, etc.) might have had.
David Brooks is dead wrong, but we shouldn’t be surprised that David Frum is enamored — these days Frum dreams of a new conservatism that looks suspiciously like liberalism, and spends more time hyperventilating about TV personalities’ occasional missteps than extremists in the White House.
(Cross-posted at The HF Blog.)
You Know There’s a Problem When You Need a Talking Gorilla to Make Your Ideas Sound More Plausible
Anybody ever heard of Ismael? The 1992 novel by Daniel Quinn is a self-described “adventure of the mind and spirit” and, I gather, something of a cult-classic among the environmentalist and population-control crowds. I first encountered it in high school, where a leftist English teacher shared an excerpt with us. It was utter crap, so laughably bad that, as Dennis Prager would say, you’d have to be an academic to buy into it. Ishmael found its way back into my life again a couple weeks ago, when I came across a copy at a rummage sale. I’m about halfway through, and it’s every bit as bad as I remember.
Ishmael is the story of a disaffected man who desperately wants to “save the world,” and soon meets the titular Ishmael, a wise teacher who promises to show him how. Oh, and did I mention Ishmael is a talking gorilla? It seems the world’s troubles are all due to the fact that Earth’s “community of life” has become divided by two competing mythologies: the Takers (i.e., civilization), who believe in using Earth’s resources to their hearts’ content and dominating over all other species; and the Leavers (i.e., primitive tribes and every non-human species on Earth). Taker belief that “the world was made for man” has thrown the ecosystem off balance and led to an ever-expanding human population unsustainable by an ever-diminishing food supply.
The section we read in high school concerned a drastic re-imagining of the Book of Genesis (this version’s, er, polytheistic) as a Leaver story that, instead of boring crap about morality and human nature (incredibly, Quinn has the characters befuddled as to why anyone would think its message was along these lines), was really about the roots of Taker arrogance.
For more on just how off-kilter the world of Daniel Quinn’s imagination is, check out this piece by Professor Allen B. Downey (Olin College of Engineering).
Please Don’t Make Me Illegal!
Our old friend Jay Morris was never the sharpest knife in the rack, but his latest “Stupid Things People Say about Gays”…well, it redefines stupid. It’s hard to take seriously someone who shows no concern whatsoever for hatred in the name of one’s own cause, and his rhetoric about making people illegal betrays either a lack of the most rudimentary understanding of individual rights, constitutional theory, or marriage policy, or (more likely) the fact that he’s apt to simply disregard reality and honest discourse for propaganda purposes. After all, “Give me joint fishing licenses or give me death!” isn’t much of a rallying cry…
*snort* Sure, Jay. You’re gonna *chuckle* “fight tooth and nail to prevent laws against [my] pursuit of happiness.” ‘Cuz you’re such an objective, principled guy…
Conservative Standards 